Ping-pong and power

Ping-pong and power are bedfellows.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, a proponent of the penholding offense style, is limbering up to take on Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda at table tennis when he arrives in Tokyo this week. It is first such visit by a Chinese president for a decade, and the first such game since Fukuda's 'away fixture' with the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, last year.

The ping-pong may inspire some personal rivalry, yet it is symbolic of a realisation among both of the need to improve ties. Japan-China relations are stagnating, and Tibet is now beginning to encroach on the bilateral agenda. Fukuda recently told visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi that the plight of Tibet was an international issue, challenging Beijing's repeated assertions that it is a domestic matter. Ties have also been strained by a health scare over Chinese-made dumplings and a dispute over lucrative drilling rights to gas fields in the East China Sea.

Hu and Fukuda may comment on the parallels between the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, the Seoul Games of 1988 and this summer's Beijing Games as examples of East Asian countries reinventing themselves.

The paddles and balls have helped grease the axles of power before: 'Ping-Pong Diplomacy' famously thawed the ice in Sino-American relations, paving the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s.